12/05/2020
This is the Central Queensland cattle station where I spent the first 10years of my life, ‘helping’ (as much as a little kid can) my fam and the workmen with mustering, branding, ear tagging, castrating, horn snipping and watching the cattle getting loaded onto trucks destined for the abattoir or other farms. Once a month or so, we’d go out and shoot a cow, quarter it on the back of the Ute and take it home to feed the tourists
This is a pretty standard upbringing for kids on outback stations and it’s standard to tag, brand, castrate and de-horn calves - all with no pain killers. It’s standard for the calf to squeal in pain when it’s branded, for blood to sq**rt out from its little horn stumps, for the sc***um and ears to bleed. All standard.
Would you let your kid do this?.
Would you let your kid watch this?
Would you do this to your dog? You you accept dog breeders if this was standard.
2 points I’d like to make: 1️⃣I’m glad I was exposed to it as a kid as it gave me a understanding of where my food came from. I understood that sausages were made from mince being stuffed into intestines. Because I helped make them.💁🏽♀️
2️⃣I think we should all know the processes involved in the production of our food - adults and children.
These practices are standard. If you wouldn’t be comfortable letting your kid watch four painful procedures happen to a baby animal, why invest in an Industry that does it for you. Knowing something barbaric occurs on an industrial systematic level, and not doing anything about it, is cowardice and hypocrisy in my personal opinion.
People of privilege in 1st world countries have;
1. The knowledge to change
2. The means to change ie great options at the supermarket
3. And the personal incentive to change - animal products are tightly related do Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, heart attacks and strokes.
We have so much privilege, I feel it’s our obligation to be better humans: better to ourselves, animals and the planet.
If you’re after help transitioning to a plant based diet let me know and I’ll point you in the right direction.
If I can make a change - raised on a cattle station - you can too.